FIG. 1 is a partial side view of a conventional tilting and telescopic steering apparatus.
As shown in FIG. 1, the conventional tilting and telescopic steering apparatus includes a steering shaft 101 connected to a steering wheel (not shown), a column housing 103 surrounding the steering shaft 101, a telescopic tube 105 slidably coupled to the rear side of the column housing 103, a telescopic bracket 107 coupled to the rear side of the telescopic tube 105, a tilt bracket 109 rotatably coupled to one side of the telescopic bracket 107, a shroud cover 111 surrounding the tilt bracket 109, an adjusting lever 113 provided on one side of the column housing 103, a fixing part 115 provided on one side of the tilt bracket 109, and a cable 117 connecting the adjusting lever 113 and the fixing part 115 to each other.
The steering shaft 101 consists of an upper shaft 101a and a lower shaft 101b connected with each other via an universal joint (not shown), wherein the upper shaft 101a is built in the tilt bracket 109 and the lower shaft 101b is built in the column housing 103.
The tilt bracket 109 is rotatably coupled to the telescopic bracket 107 via a tilt shaft 119, and the centers of rotation in the upper shaft 101a and the tilt bracket 109 coincide with that of the tilt shaft 119. Thus, upon the tilting operation by an operator, the upper shaft 101a and the tilt bracket 109 are concentrically rotated.
Meanwhile, the operation of the adjusting lever 113 releases the contact state between the column housing 103 and the telescopic tube 105 and the locking state of the fixing part 115, so that the operator can freely adjust the tilting and telescoping operations. This is because the cable 117 connected to the adjusting lever 113 is also connected to the fixing part 115 so that the driving force of the adjusting lever 113 is transferred to the fixing part 115.
However, the conventional apparatus having the above construction has following problems.
A first problem is that since the adjusting lever 113 is provided on the column housing 103 while being separated from the tilt bracket 109, when upon tilt adjusting, the shroud cover 111 rotates together with the tilt bracket 109, a gap between a grip of the adjusting lever 113 and the shroud cover 111 does not maintain constant.
A second problem is that if the cable 117 to link the adjusting lever 113 with the fixing part 115 were improperly set, the tilting and the telescoping operations are not properly achieved. Additionally, extra parts are required for installing the cable 117.